Is it going to be just mums and just dads forever now?

[ParentsandParents]

My wife has just had our first baby and well as splitting the load as much as possible I've been trying to join in with the community of new parents and be an active and equal participant. It's tough though. Partly because all the parenting classes, activities and meet ups are held during the week and I'm working at the moment, though I'll be doing three months of SPL later in the year. And partly because every new parents group, chat or meet up I join seems to either just be the women who've given birth and nobody else, or to quickly split into separate groups, meet ups and chats for 'mums' and 'dads' with the 'mums' often initiating this. Even when the point of meeting up or chatting is nothing to do with being a man or woman, and everything to do with being a new parent and / or meeting new people. It hasn't been like this so far in my life, I've always been in and seen mixed groups at work, in friendships and in activities. Is it unreasonable to have expected that new parents would want to spend time with other new parents, or that men and women could talk about our kids and be friends, or does something about new parenthood send everyone spiraling back to the 50's with the men in the pub talking about craft ale and what football team their kids will support and the women in the park talking about books and feeding? Will this change when our kid(s) are older or is this the way it's always going to be now we have a kid.

@XingMing But... any family with two parents have two lots of input? And any family with any form of mixed support group would also have both sexes / genders contributing. Kids live in society, which is mixed.

And we have had two inputs. We are still married, together, after almost 30 years. We are no longer working it out, but parenting never completely stops. Happily, my mum is still around in decent health, and ffs I still ask her opinion. She's seen more of life than me, so would I not?

[quote Mummyoflittledragon]@SarahAndQuack
I don’t consider what I said a micro aggression. I’m disabled. I get a lot of shit coming my way so I get it hurts but I sure as hell don’t go looking for reasons to be upset.

I was speaking about the postpartum women, ie the mums on maternity leave. I had no intention of excluding op. Had I said “the mums, who gave birth / the postpartum mums are still on maternity leave”, it would have sounded clunky and unnecessary.

Op is a mum who didn’t give birth and therefore cannot be one of the mums on maternity leave. She doesn’t share that experience. It is not ignoring her status as mum to exclude her from a the description of a grouping of postpartum mums. She will be a mum and partner taking SPL when her dp returns to work. Perhaps another time she will be a mum on mat leave and her dp will be the one working.[/quote]
I never suggested you did go looking for reasons to be upset.

I think it is a microaggression, but maybe I should have explained more clearly why.

If you read this thread, it is full of people separating 'the OP' from 'the mums'. Some of them have done that because they thought she was a dad, which is understandable; many of them because, like you, they thought their shorthand for 'the mums on maternity leave' or 'the birth mums' wasn't that important.

But actually, it is important. If you are a lesbian non-bio mum, you can spend your life being told you're not a real mother. Reinforcing that constantly, however innocently or accidentally, is hurtful.

Of course, as you say, it would not be at all hurtful to refer to her in ways that distinguish her from the mums who gave birth, or the mums who're on maternity leave, or the postpartum mums.

But that wasn't what you actually posted.

I am quite bemused by the posters who have opinions whose children are pre-school age, opining from experience. Very very quietly saying that your children may surprise you with the courses they choose in life.

I haven't read the full thread, but wanted to just add this:

I'm a SAHM and attend classes/groups with DS during the week - I didn't go to any when he was a baby because of the pandemic, so my experience is of TODDLER PARENT GROUPS not baby groups, which is different. It is still MOSTLY women at these groups (mostly mums, some grandmothers, the odd nanny or au pair), but there are certainly dads/grandfathers that attend too, albeit less often and in less numbers. One couple at our forest group alternate Fridays off work and therefore alternate who attends the group each week. DH takes (now toddler) DS to a class on a Saturday morning, where there are lots of dads but it is not specifically targeted towards them and there are mums there too. I know the "just dads" groups exist, and there are some "mums" groups where a dad attending might be odd (e.g. postnatal exercise or a breastfeeding cafe), but largely not. And at all of the groups I've attended, absolutely none have segregated by sex at all - unless of course there were no men present. The only exception was our NCT group. We often meet up "just the mums" and the dads have met up once or twice as well, when we all meet up as a group it just isn't as enjoyable but that's because 3 of the husbands are dickheads

I agree with those that are saying women might not want to talk to men about how their vaginas/breasts are feeling, how their libido has plummeted, their fears etc as it is incredibly vulnerable being a new mother. Similarly, men might have worries that they feel more comfortable talking about with other men - I don't know what they are; I'm not a man. When I had my son I didn't have any friends who had children who were women, but two of my oldest male friends from childhood did - and I still wouldn't have felt comfortable talking to them about my immediate postpartum experience (although I did reach out to their partners who I don't know particularly well). If it was just talking about the lack of sleep or reflux, then a mixed sex group is fine - but a lot of other stuff feels very closely tied to the female body.

Im pleased you feel this way! You're right

When i had a new baby, i would hang out with other new mums and often share stories about how useless the men were

After the first few weeks, it stops being about having given birth because most people recover physically from that experience. At which point it turns into "what kind of parent are you?"

Women have the shared experience of going through pregnancy and childbirth and want to talk about it with other women, there’s nothing worse than a man trying to join in with that.

suggesting organising a dads group for all the lonely dads to go to the pub. As though these dads couldn’t be friends with women, or make friends with other men in the presence of women
If that's what she meant then she's being ridiculous.
But if she meant the dads may have different experiences from mums that they want to discuss privately then she may be right. I know my DH had conversations with his male friends about role models, about how to parent as a dad, about the patterns they'd witnessed in their dad's behaviours and the ones they wanted to replicate and the ones they didn't.
I don't think it's your job as a mother to organise a dads-only group. They're capable of organising one themselves if they want it.

I am part of a WhatsApp group set up by another mum from my son’s primary school. It is just mums on that group. Not that dads were not invited, I’m sure if one showed an interest they would have been welcome. The husbands/partners of the group were not the ones who tended to do school runs. It was us mums who formed our little social circle after getting to know each other on the playground. Now our kids have moved on to secondary school. We tried to get dads involved a few times but they just weren’t bothered. It was just one unfortunate truth for us.

@ParentsandParents you come across like a man in your OP by complaining about the gender divide between parents.

The forcefulness isn't something that is masculine. I know some very forceful women who make others (men and women) uncomfortable by the way they talk and wrote to others.

You and your wife have plenty of male friends @ParentsandParents, why are you stressing about this?

Honestly I don't think this is really about sexism or "regressing."

Part of it is just numbers, there are generally more mothers at some things like toddler groups. And on an individual basis there are some other elements that come into play. Sometimes mums are a little inclined to be wary of men they don't know with their kids, and some may also be wary of pursuing one on one friendships with other men outside of a controlled environment like work.

But I also think this sort of thing, even at couples events, is too common, including among people used to mixed sex environments, to be just random or imposed. I think for a lot of people this is the first time they've encountered really different sex based experiences.

Before I had kids, I was always in very male dominated work environments as well as having mostly male friends. Being a mum was the first time that changed and it did create a new sense of solidarity and shared experience.

I don't think this is something to denigrate. Better to think of it as a good time to learn to appreciate the different vibe of a single sex group, which can be quite enjoyable.

I've met various Dads at things, a few quite friendly to chat to, but I'd feel uncomfortable to say invite them over so it's just me, the Dad and their DC.

The one Dad that did a shared maternity leave didn't do any groups. I just knew him from the park.

Have to admit that I haven’t RTFT but I wanted to comment because I’m sorry you’re feeling alone but I do think the first 6 months to a year of parenthood can leave anyone feeling marooned. My bro did SPL and felt similarly. But I’m just wondering why things are still split along gender lines for you? COVID messed lots up but presumably you’re able to go to groups/classes etc now? The only WhatsApp/Mums-v-dads stuff I’ve participated in was NCT; if I’m at a playgroup, I’ll chat to anyone, swap numbers or whatever. 1-on-1, not groups. NCT is only to get everyone through the first few months alive. You sound awesome by the way!

I’m sure you probably didn’t mean it this way @mathanxiety and loads of people on this thread have used this form of words too. But it’s a bit upsetting when people say things like “even though you’re a woman, you’re not one who has gone through what the mothers have”. You refer to the women who have given birth as ‘the mothers’, and define me as a woman who hasn’t gone through what ‘the mothers’ have. This reads as you saying that I’m not a mother and never will be and that lesbians and bi woman whose partners have given birth (and from the sounds of it adoptive mothers too), aren’t or can’t be real mothers because they didn’t give birth. I’m sure you didn’t mean it that way, but the drip drip drip of hearing little things like this as a gay woman add up to what feels like homophobia.

Adoptive mothers know that their experiences are different from biological mothers, this is something that is considered important for them to know in the adoption process.

I sometimes get the impression from hearing people talk that people who have kids using reproductive technologies, including gay men and lesbians, don't get this kind of thing stressed in the same way? It seems like there is a lot of effort to say that it's the same, that they are "real" mothers or fathers. I'm not sure how helpful that is in the end.

In the most basic, medical sense, being a mother or father is about reproductive role. "Mothering" or "fathering" in the cultural/relationship sense is derived from the biological one. Even when a non-parent feels parental to an unrelated child, that comes out of the biologically created capacities we all have, which is why we recognize those feelings and the behaviour that comes from them as a kind of parental action, and the effect on the child as being in the same mode. To talk about "real"motherhood really depends on context, it has to or the whole concept loses its meaning. It's real when someone acts as a mother, but being a biological mother is also real, and so is a genetic connection.

Birthing and non-birthing parents don't have the same experience, and the biological element affects us in very striking ways around childbirth, more than most other things in modern society. That's one of the reasons it can be such a shock to some new mums, they haven't had that before in their lives. Recognizing that and observing it doesn't make people homophobic.

But, @LobsterNapkin, the OP talks repeatedly about that very biological experience and biological difference you are describing?

Why do you think she doesn't get it - just because other posters keep reiterating the point, or because you think if she really truly understood the biological element the way you do, she wouldn't be interested in discussing parenting with both dads and mums any more?

It just seems to me totally natural that all of us, as whatever kinds of parents we are, want to find other people who share our experiences, and we want to be able to chat about them. Why wouldn't the OP feel weird in a situation where she belongs neither with the bio mums who've given birth, nor with the dads, who've not given birth and where those seem to be the only two options.

I have also found that there’s a type of regression of gender roles once you have kids. I used to think that DH and I were quite progressive and equal but it’s felt like they went out the door when we had kids. After 6 years of being a working mum and dealing with mum guilt I recently quit my job and now it feels like the 1950s have truly landed in our house, but at the same time, it’s a huge weight off my shoulders not to have to do all that juggling. I almost think that (gulp) it was easier for women when they just did the house wife thing without it even being questioned…!!!! And then I feel terrible and worry about the example I’m setting for DD… you can’t win.

There is a nice website for dads here:
www.daddilife.com/

Some of our group set up 'Dads club' so they could meet up with kids in tow. Ours were slightly younger & DH never really fancied it.

I often find in a mixed group the men all gravitate towards each other & get panicked if stuck with the ladies.

My SiL met some nice mums that lived locally through various baby groups when she was on maternity leave. BIL was working FT so didn’t mix with them.

He recently started to want to reach out to other dads, so SiL got the phone numbers of the dads from her friends and BiL created a WhatsApp group and organised a regular football meet-up. He's now made some great friends that he sees regularly.

Football may not be your thing (it's not my DH's!) but you could do similar.

I often find in a mixed group the men all gravitate towards each other & get panicked if stuck with the ladies.

My observation of several dads in a mixed group was that they gravitated toward the other men and left the 'parenting' of their children to whatever women were there.

The first 3 months of chat were mostly about sharing stories of birth and cracked nipples and discharge coming out of various orifices. That was my experience of why the group naturally went to men and women.

This and the other comments like this. Birth is not something men experience and as it is such a massive thing women like to discuss this with other women.
Accept this and maybe organise some groups yourself OP. You can't be included in everything, give you partner some space to discuss these things with the only people who can understand.

@SarahAndQuack

But, *@LobsterNapkin*, the OP talks repeatedly about that very biological experience and biological difference you are describing?

Why do you think she doesn't get it - just because other posters keep reiterating the point, or because you think if she really truly understood the biological element the way you do, she wouldn't be interested in discussing parenting with both dads and mums any more?

It just seems to me totally natural that all of us, as whatever kinds of parents we are, want to find other people who share our experiences, and we want to be able to chat about them. Why wouldn't the OP feel weird in a situation where she belongs neither with the bio mums who've given birth, nor with the dads, who've not given birth and where those seem to be the only two options.

Yes, it is natural she feels weird. But there isn't really anything to be done about it. As kids get older it tends to become less of a thing.

@SarahAndQuack

But, *@LobsterNapkin*, the OP talks repeatedly about that very biological experience and biological difference you are describing?

Why do you think she doesn't get it - just because other posters keep reiterating the point, or because you think if she really truly understood the biological element the way you do, she wouldn't be interested in discussing parenting with both dads and mums any more?

It just seems to me totally natural that all of us, as whatever kinds of parents we are, want to find other people who share our experiences, and we want to be able to chat about them. Why wouldn't the OP feel weird in a situation where she belongs neither with the bio mums who've given birth, nor with the dads, who've not given birth and where those seem to be the only two options.

And actually, the OP is the one who feels people are saying she can't be a real mother and they are bordering on homophobia, so I think you are wrong that she fully accepts/agrees with that assessment.